Hautelinks: Week of 2/4/10

It's a nice long list yet again this week - should kill at least 15 minutes between classes! Happy Thursday and leave a comment with any other linkworthy stories you found this week!

While most of us would kill for the chance to sit front row at a fashion show, Fashionista reveals that today's celebs not only get to do it, but THEY GET PAID, A LOT. How much they're paid depends on the celeb:

Blonde women born to be warrior princesses is an interesting study published by the TimesOnline. As a blonde who admittedly acts like a princess and loves to get my own way, I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted?

IT really is a case of blonde ambition. Women with fair hair are more aggressive and determined to get their own way than brunettes or redheads, according to a study by the University of California. Researchers claim that blondes are more likely to display a “warlike” streak because they attract more attention than other women and are used to getting their own way — the so-called “princess effect.”

Do I REALLY want to WORK in fashion? Yes, it seems obvious, but many people don’t bother to really think about it. If you decide on this career path simply because you love fashion, you may be disappointed. Would you be happier working in a field that pays you very well so you can enjoy luxurious personal shopping trips instead? Fashion as a job means shopping, reading fashion magazines, and traveling all become work related and often the enjoyment you may find now in these things gets lost. When turning a hobby or a love into “work” and into a business the love affair can fade quickly. To succeed you must really have a “passion for fashion” but also a realistic awareness that this includes dealing with factories, haggling over price-points, following others direction, working at a computer for hours on ends, and in the early days perhaps “assisting” ie copying, cutting, steaming, and filing till the wee hours of the morning.

Wanna design for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's new line, Olsenboye? JCPenney just launched a contest inviting aspiring designers between the ages of 13 and 21 to submit their designs! Check out the details & enter here.

A really sad and disturbing statistic: 90% of teen girls feel the pressure to be thin, says Reuters. Personally, I think it's up to us to change this - how can we make a difference now to pave the way for a new generation of girls?

We are all told that we should be terribly busy, so we can't laze around without that nagging feeling that we need to be getting stuff done. I rejected my guilt upon learning that Europeans in the Middle Ages felt no shame for lolling about. Their favorite philosopher, Aristotle, had praised the contemplative life, and the monks spent a lot of time just praying and chanting. Guilt for doing nothing is artificially imposed on us by a Calvinistic and Puritanical culture that wants us to work hard. When you understand that it hasn't always been this way, it becomes easier to shake it off.